Tuesday 7.16: News to Know

Talks with cable companies and TV networks about just such a plan “seem to be heating up,” according to a blog post by former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Lessin. This would be a premium service for Apple, she says — and distributors have an incentive to consider the idea because the consumer electronics company would compensate them for the revenues they’d lose.

Hulu’s owners have clearly shown they don’t know what to do with the web TV service. First they planned to take the company public. Then they explored a sale, only to pull out. Then they put Hulu on the market a second time, and again yanked the “For Sale” sign, electing instead to invest a fresh $750 million. Hulu’s owners — Disney, Fox, and NBC — left it to Disney CEO Bob Iger to put a positive spin on all the flip-flopping.

If People Really Love Netflix Originals, Why Won’t It Tell Us How Many Watch Them?

With Netflix things really are a lot like that box of chocolates Forrest Gump’s* mama told him about: You never know what you’re gonna get. The streaming video giant debuted its latest original series, Orange is the New Black, last Thursday to mostly positive reviews. But is it a hit? Will it help the company become a consistent profit maker? When it comes to answers, the company isn’t exactly a Whitman Sampler. Nevertheless, a credible media is swooning and the stock is soaring.

“Celebrity video” programmer Young Hollywood is partnering with Momentum Entertainment Group, the content development and production division of ad agency Momentum Worldwide, to launch a new digital channel focusing on 2014 FIFA World Cup coverage. The channel will launch in April 2014, and will spotlight the “worldwide celebrity and athlete presence surrounding” the World Cup in Brazil. In other words, exclusive interviews, event coverage, behind-the-scenes clips, and related celebrity-centric content tied to the world’s biggest sporting event.

Reviewed! Netflix’s ‘Orange Is the New Black’; Wonderly’s ‘Edge of Normal’; WSJ’s ‘Startup of the Year’

“Orange Is the New Black,” the latest addition to the growing roster of original programming from Netflix, is the sort of transformational milestone that takes a medium in a new direction. For the emerging class of “TV shows” being distributed via the internet (technically referred to as over the top), “Orange Is the New Black” will be celebrated as the watershed moment when the best of what (used to be called) TV has to offer can only be seen via such new, unwired video distributors as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube, and (perhaps) Apple.

SB Nation’s new video series, A Day’s Work, has several interesting things going for it: baseball legend Wade Boggs, an insider’s look at unique baseball stadiums, and the workers who do odd jobs around the ballparks. It also has a major corporate sponsor in Jeep. In fact, A Day’s Work—the first video series produced by Vox Media’s in-house creative services arm—was conceived specifically to promote the Jeep Patriot.

MediaMall Technologies, makers of the online TV streaming service PlayOn, has launched an app for the BlackBerry 10 platform that brings content from channels like Netflix, HBO GO and Hulu to handset owners in the US and Canada.

Alloy Digital and Smosh have launched a new morning-style kids show on Shut Up Cartoons, their animated programming channel on YouTube. “Just Shut Up!” parodies morning kids shows like “Romper Room” and “Captain Kangaroo.” And since it comes from Smosh, the show is armed with a comedic sensibility that is more appropriate for the duo’s teenage audience.

The second season of “Larry King Now,” an interview series hosted by the legendary newscaster, is premiering today on Hulu and Ora TV. The show comes from Ora TV, a production studio and digital content network. The first episode features an interview between King and actress Jane Lynch. Other guests scheduled to appear during the coming second season include Oprah Winfrey, Mark Wahlberg, Denzel Washington, Sharon Stone, and Julian Lennon.

In their latest installment of “Kids React…,” the brothers interviewed a dozen children ranging from ages 7 to 13 about their thoughts on the viral Cheerios commercial that has been controversial because of the unusually high amount of racist comments from social media. All the kids in the video are perplexed as to why anyone would make terrible comments about the seemingly normal family featured in the commercial.

Justin Timberlake’s new video for “Tunnel Vision” is not safe for work, unless your boss is cool with the “tasteful nudity” defense. The video was reportedly banned by YouTube shortly after its release. YouTube did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

Sonar Entertainment will offer 1989 cowboy epic “Lonesome Dove” and more than 500 other made-for-TV miniseries and movies through YouTube’s recently launched pay-channel platform — though how many takers it will get for such older library fare is an open question.

This isn’t quite the way the story is told but it’s as accurate a reading of it as the one that is given: patent trolls have now arrived on YouTube. What’s actually happened is that someone has opened for business in aiding song rights owners in tracking who is using their music on YouTube videos. Said rights owners can then go and demand some portion of the advertising revenue accruing to such videos that use their songs. This isn’t of course patent trolling: but we could describe it as copyright trolling if we were so minded.

Chinese search giant Baidu Inc. said it would buy one of China’s mobile app stores for $1.9 billion as it ramps up to compete for business from China’s growing population of smartphone-carrying consumers.

Via eight Vine videos, Scottish musician Aidan John Moffat released a new album, The Eternalist. Moffat realizes this may not be an album in the “strictest sense,” but a perk of the non-traditional format is Vine’s endless looping, allowing the listener to decide how long the record is and creating a different, customizable listening experience.

Nestivity has released version 1.0 of its software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for hosting live conversations and discussions on Twitter, adding new support for Google+ Hangouts and YouTube video playback.